Links for August 16, 2011

Here’s Trent Reznor back in the 80s performing some synthy, poppy tunes with various bands. I highly recommend watching the entire performance by Cleveland’s Slam Bamboo. Listen, we all did things in the 80s we’re not proud of. Hopefully having a Flophawk like the leader singer wasn’t one of them:

I imagine a young, sensitive Trent hiding in the basement working on his music while his mom brought him tuna and jelly sandwiches just the way he liked them. [dangerous minds]

Flavorwire has compiled the top 30 bitchiest things musicians have said about each other. “The verdict: what musicians might lack in verbosity, they more than make up for with vitriol.” Oh, snap. [flavorwire]

AC/DC has teamed up with Warburn Estate wineries to produce new robust and refined flavours like “Highway to Hell Cabernet” and “You Shook Me All Night Long Moscato.” Hmm yes, I detect notes of cherry, thunder, and short pants… [esquire via bbc]

David Lynch (Mulholland Dr., Eraserhead) is set to release an album called Crazy Clown Time. The preview release sounds like David Lynch recorded it dressed like a crazy clown, as it’s unnecessary and off-putting. [deadline]

We’re back!

Links for August 12, 2011

Anna Pulley wonders whether the recent phenomenon of rock acts who reached their peak in the 90s are ‘selling out’ by taking their old material on the road. Selling out by performing their early music to fans who paid to hear specifically that? Would JK Rowling be selling out if she read a chapter from Harry Potter 1 to the kiddies at the local library? Find a new criticism or at least use SELL OUT! when it makes sense. [mother jones]

Listen to Feist’s new single from Metals, “How Come You Never Go There.” It’s pretty and subdued like you wish your girlfriend would be. Yes, hun, everyone knows you’re drunk and having so much fun. You don’t need to keep yelling it. [pitchfork]

“6 Reasons Why Vinyl Totally Sucks” – by, from the sound of it, some damn lazy sixteen year old. Why does one format need to rule them all? You can have multiple players, man. Chill. Have a Flintstones vitamin. [digital music news]

This headline is close to home and funny for Southwestern Ontarians. [decibel]

In other ‘totally sucks’ news, “Five Reasons Jay-Z and Kanye’s “Otis” Video Totally Sucks.” Did the same kid write this? Oh, wait: that does suck. But it’s not surprising. The video has been removed from the article but can be found here.

As far as the song goes, they completely rely on the virtues of the sample they’re, uh, “paying tribute to” and making a few lame rhymes over top. And somehow they’ve managed to mess that up by making Otis Redding annoying. Kanye screaming at the end makes me want to grab a blow torch of my own. Their giddy smiles and antics must be from getting away with making millions of dollars from squeezing out that turd. [miami new times]

Links for July 29, 2011

“Four Reasons It Pays for Songwriters To Be Patient.” One of them isn’t ‘so you don’t end up like Ke$ha’ because that’s assumed. Spell your name out with real letters. It’ll be worth it. She also needs to spend a little more time not looking like John Travolta. [bmi]

The Electronic Daisy Carnival Experience movie premiered in L.A. and a tweet from DJ Kaskade encouraged fans to come see a free show outside the closed event. Word spread fast and eventually a big crowd overwhelmed the area and had to be dispersed by police.

I was going to go with a NY mag/Vulture link, which is where I saw the story initially, but I’m so tired of their dumb, shallow commentary that I won’t be linking to them again. So I have to go with THR instead. THR! They suggested that the original tweeter and other electronic artists just want to prove they have lots of fans, despite not gracing “mainstream magazine covers,” so they ‘incited’ a riot. Yeah, and hockey fans want everyone dead! And Vulture has great reporting. [THR]

Fiddy Cent be Label disputin’ and refuses to release his album with Interscope because their efforts towards it have allegedly been a messy, dragged out slog. He claims the one song of many recorded that he sent to them had leaked. I tend to believe 50 Cent on this one, despite how little I care for his career, because labels appear to screw around with artists and release dates in an often illogical manner. He’s still gonna put out Vitamin Water, right? I need it to maintain the illusion of being healthy whilst drinking liquid diabetes. It’s good for you because it says VITAMINS on it. [guardian]

A look back at Lollapalooza’s history over the past 20 years. From Jane’s Addiction to An Horse…?! [chicago tribune]

Ok! Magazine says, Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ Is “The Number One Single From the 20th Century” because the Nielsen Company SoundScan Division announced so. I thought it exploded a few years ago after TV shows like Scrubs played it for humour value, and a bunch of jocks think it’s righteous to sing at Date Rape Karaoke Night. [ok!]

Links for July 27, 2011

OK Go have released yet another innovative music video of the band and performers from the troupe Pilobolus dancing and posing above a glass floor — and we get the underneath, upskirt view. It’s a lot cooler than that sounds, especially when several frames cover the screen and a mosaic of feet spell out words and bodies roll down the screen like raindrops. You can see an interactive version if you use Google Chrome here. Otherwise, head on over to the link. [vulture]

Microsoft and Apple took advantage of Amy Winehouse’s death to post reminders to purchase her album “Back to Black” on twitter and iTunes, respectively. Marketers were treating human beings like dollar signs?! My world has… changed… forever. Everything’s so bright and… sharp. [billboard]

Spinner made a list of rock stars’ hobbies (although some of them are just interests.) Rivers Cuomo apparently loves soccer, knitting, and selling out. [spinner]

Facebook won’t let the album cover art from Nirvana’s “Nevermind” be posted to advertise for the super-deluxe-edition re-release (Sept 27) due to the tiny baby wang. There are pervs out there. And album art on Facebook is their first stop! Now excuse me while I browse through thousands of bikini pictures of young girls who have public profiles. [blurt]

Links for July 25, 2011

Watch two (very) small clips of new music from Feist’s Metals due out October 4th. Pfft, tease. [pitchfork]

In news that seems like it came from an Onion-style parody site, a man in Sweden is receiving medical benefits for having an addiction to heavy metal. Not because something is wrong with his head, but because his ‘addiction’ is interfering with his ability to work. This guy is allowed to play his music loudly during his shift, receive money on top of his wages, and can leave work to attend shows. Urge to kill rising. I guess getting paid to be a completely self-centred metal head piece of shit isn’t entirely different than receiving benefits for eating way too many hamburgers. [the local]

Here’s a really interesting article on what happens to your digital music when you die (as it is not physical property in the traditional sense, even though, well, it IS. I mean, it’s not ghost music.) MP3s appear to fall under the definition for ‘phonorecord’ that they use in the laws (in order to not have to keep changing it every time a new format like tapes or CDs come out.) It seems to me, the first law they reference allows for file sharing music because owners have the right to do with their music what they please after it is purchased. Then again, I’m just a lay person, and I would need to pay a lawyer a butt tonne of money in order to figure out the language they created so that we have to pay them to understand our rights. The gist of the article is that, essentially, laws are F’ed in the A. I mean, the terms and agreements you sign with iTunes makes you promise to follow extra rules while Apple’s created a sort of loophole in order for iPods to exist under copyright law. You don’t really own digital music the way you own a CD. Just read the article, okay?! [evolver]

An article on Winehouse and other musicians who have passed at age 27 (there are now 35 of them.) It contains the phrase ‘Nostra-dumbasses’ and chastises numerologists. The facts are mysterious though. Until you remember one can only stay addicted to drugs for so long, and they all probably got famous and started using heavily around the same age… [seattle pi]

“MTV’s 5 Tips For Digital Marketing To Millenials.” Does anyone else find that term as repulsive as Millenials themselves? [hypebot]

Links for July 22, 2011

Chris Brown is set to star in a romantic comedy adaptation of Steve Harvey’s book, “Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man.” Failing that, he can always move to TV and star in his own sitcom, “Shit My Girlfriend Says.” [boston globe]

In early July, a Heineken beer ad featuring a cover of the Dead Kennedys’ “Too Drunk To Fuck” was pulled because someone, somehow, thought it promoted over-consumption of booze. Now the Dead Kennedys have released a statement saying they have never sold out any of their songs to endorse any products, let alone in this case. Aside from the stupidity for both thinking it was a good idea to use that song to sell beer AND that it promotes binge drinking, who the hell would ever drink more than one Heineken?! [pitchfork]

A concert tribute to Michael Jackson will feature songs from Thriller and benefit charities. Please have very few costumes changes and subsequently a zombie number for “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin” with undead gangfights and finger snapping! I’d pay handsomely. [l.a. times]

Vanilla Ice says the Biebs ‘will be forgotten in a few years.’ Pop Crush tries to rip on Mr. Ice as he ‘knows all about being forgotten.’ I think they need a lesson in pop culture 101, because laughing stocks are far better remembered than even modest successes. I may forget the Biebs in ten years, but this will live on in my mind forever. [pop crush]

How could people forget about Justin Bieber when he just broke perfume sales records? The seductive fragrance, Someday, has young girls and women all over hoping someday the Biebs will sniff them out like a floppy haired puppy to their kitties. I mean, something legal and appropriate. [black book]

Links for July 20, 2011

“Going Clean: Drugs and Creativity in the Lives of 10 Musicians” – with artists like Bowie to Reznor. It’ll make you want to do some drugs! And not. [flavorwire]

Miami New Times (really?) made a list of five other less-than-gangsta arrests of rappers in the wake of Ja Rule’s tax evasion ruling. Ice-T called a cop a punk bitch “because he pretty much was a punk bitch.” [new times]

Anthony Burgess’s songs from a musical adaptation of A Clockwork Orange (which he wrote before his death in the early 90s) will be performed next summer in Manchester. I was gonna go for the obvious, oh maybe it’ll have classic show tunes and dance numbers and be called Rape! The Musical. But, apparently that’s not far off. [guardian]

Apple’s revenues for this past quarter are 28.57 billion, no thanks to iPods (their sales are down 20%.) Quick! Add another feature, make them new hip colours, and charge double! Whew, close one. [digital music news]